Mysterious wheat deals complicate hunger fight in Ethiopia
Samuel Gebre, Agnieszka de Sousa and Simon Marks, Bloomberg
Jan. 17, 2021
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Soft red winter wheat is unloaded from a grain cart during harvest in Kirkland, Ill., on July 17, 2020.Bloomberg photo by Daniel Acker.
Back in November, Ethiopia unveiled two deals to buy deeply discounted wheat from suppliers that seasoned traders had never heard of. A website named for one of the companies listed a German address that didn t exist and appeared to use stock photos of models.
Two months on, it remains a mystery who was behind the deals or what their motivation was, especially as Ethiopia says it hasn t lost any money. One thing is clear though: no wheat has been delivered. The government has now canceled the tenders and plans to start over.